Telecom Refund

Telecom billing errors are increasing every year and so is the need for filing disputes with the service providers to recover any telecom refund inside telecom invoices. Mistakes, and overcharges are prevalent. If you have a telecom manager or telecom team we recommend they devote a lot of their schedule toward telecom invoice auditing and review. They could stay busy full time just reviewing historical bills to find overcharges, tariff mistakes, and contract non-compliances. But then after locating a billing error next comes the harder part, filing the telecom disputes and claiming the refunds. There are many twists and turns in filing a telecom dispute, knowledge is key. This telecom dispute tracking takes up a lot of time, just monitoring the dispute for approval through to completion can take weeks of daily calling and follow up and can sometimes take months.

Some refunds won’t be obtained without deep tariff knowledge and telecom tax training. The deeper historical telecom refunds require years of bill auditing knowledge, not just common sense applications. If telecom audits were simple, everyone would do them. That’s what we tell our students on the first day of telecom training. If you are looking for that silver bullet, you won’t find it here. The larger refunds do require deeper knowledge. Surprisingly, these telecom refunds remain hidden within your telecom invoices. The larger refunds require a lot of drill down calculations and have many factors. If your telecom team is like most, they are busy keeping your services operational and functioning properly. They are constantly adding new locations, new equipment, and working on core jobs.

Auditel has a proven track record for delivering superior telecom recovery and historical telecom refunds. As technology is dynamic and constantly changing, Auditel has the infrastructure to manage reduce your telecom expense, and protect your telecom services. We have the telecom knowledge needed to uncover the large refunds and we can help your business get the maximum refunds.

What percentage of telecom bills can contain telecom billing errors and possible refunds?

CFO magazine reported (based on research by Aberdeen) that telecom service expenses are in error at a staggering 7% to 12% of spend; a figure resulting in $8 Billion dollars a year in lost profits for Fortune 500 companies alone. Another study from Gartner found that 85% of telecom invoices have billing errors.

Why can’t our AP department get us telecom refunds and savings?

Many organizations make an effort to locate errors in their telecom invoices and claim telecom refunds in their telecom bills, typically done by the Accounts Payable (AP) department, but it is a tedious and time-consuming task, and frankly, this isn’t the core job for the AP department personnel and they have no expertise or training to talk with the telecom providers regarding tariff, taxes, or billing mistakes. They are usually so understaffed that it’s a huge job just paying the monthly telecom billings before late fees occur.

What should we do if we are moving our telecom services to a new service provider?

First thing we would recommend is to get a telecom refund audit conducted immediately on the services you are moving before cancelling the old service provider billing. CEO, CFOs, and Telecom Managers could put this at the top of the next project to do list before the old services are cancelled. It’s best to have a refund audit conducted by professionals who have no relationship with telecom service providers. Auditel is unbiased and has no relationship with any service providers and receives no commission from any of them.

What type of business needs a historical telecom refund audit?

We’ve found that business with constant mergers and acquisitions, those with high number of office moves and changes, have higher telecom billing errors. These business require more telecom management. More telecom investigation will bring more telecom disputes for historical telecom recovery. For example, telecom contracts with legal terms and conditions need research for added protection to your business. This review can help your business receives the same contract discounts for all like services.

Are telecom contracts changing?

Most telecom service agreements(wired, data, and wireless service contracts) last one, two, or three years. The provisions in some of the older contracts are becoming outdated due to changes in technology. Data infrastructure is constantly changing with new services constantly added increasing telecom capabilities. Many companies opt to work on their own contract review until they cause telecom penalties. Talk with other business and discover information about Auditel. We capture highest telecom refunds.

With our telecom contract review we will ferret out all of your Service Agreements, telecom contracts, and addendums both new and expired. We will conduct a full investigation into your service requirements, usages, and ensure your services are in line with your contractual commitments. Additionally, we can recommend any further contract language required to amend your telecom agreements. This can give your business added security and telecom savings.

What results can I expect from an internal telecom refund audit?

We haven’t seen great success from employees without telecom knowledge. After all, employees without serious telecom knowledge can cause penalties along with loss of telecom refunds. We’ve found that most times if an employee does continue to identify the refund, they lose interest in the telecom dispute. While other employees may file the telecom dispute, and yet forget to monitor them to completion. We’ve seen it time and again, employees get busy with their daily routine. By no fault of their own, employees can’t put off their daily business core job. Although the telecom refund process can take four weeks, sometimes larger refunds take upwards of four months.

Although negotiating the refund for overcharges with telecom vendors is tedious, it’s also sometimes frustrating. Telecom audits require time and can always become a lengthy process when locating billing errors, filing telecom disputes, and obtaining maximum refunds. Not to mention, very few telecom employees have the knowledge to read and translate thousands of USOCs, various service types, and Classes of Service that make up the telecom billing charges. These employees probably can’t determine if Federal, State and Local taxes and surcharges were billed correctly. This can reduce your historical telecom refunds. Furthermore, they probably do not have the knowledge to analyze and compare hundreds of different billing formats, billing codes, and constantly changing rating plans, applied by the carriers. Missed telecom refunds bring revenue loss. In summary, we recommend having Auditel conduct the telecom refund audit and train your staff during and after the audit for maximum refunds.